


Chain Reaction

by vampiricalthorns



Series: Breathe and it'll pass [2]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Emetophobia, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Panic Attacks, Please read with caution, i guess?, i'm sorry jeonghan you don't deserve my issues, jeonghan is emetophobic and is triggered when chan gets sick from overexertion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-04-12 18:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21652687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vampiricalthorns/pseuds/vampiricalthorns
Summary: It’s like a chain reaction whenever it happens.Jeonghan has barely even made it inside the practice room, only getting to briefly see the scene in front of him before he’s roughly grabbed by Joshua and Minghao and dragged away, into one of the conference rooms at the end of the hallway, in the opposite direction of the bathrooms. He knows what’s happened,sawwhat happened, and logically, he knows that it’s only because they’ve been practising for too long; because they’ve gone a bit too long without rest; because they’ve been intensely practising for the entire day.Butstill, seeing Chan on the opposite side of the room, crouched over the trash bin and making these horrible horrible gagging noises.Still, even if he’d only witnessed a brief second or so before he’s been roughly grabbed by the shoulders and led away, it’senough.
Relationships: Hong Jisoo | Joshua/Yoon Jeonghan, Wen Jun Hui | Jun/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Series: Breathe and it'll pass [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1560997
Comments: 7
Kudos: 152





	Chain Reaction

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry Jeonghannie, you don't deserve my issues
> 
> basically, i have emetophobia, and my brother has chronic migraines and let's just say that it isn't always a good combination. so here's a vent i wrote in 2 hours, projecting my feelings onto my poor boy Jeonghan. 
> 
> please do read with caution if you struggle with some of the themes in this story. 
> 
> i did not reread this and yes, the pov is very very strange. i'm kind of in a weird headspace rn, and i think it shows in my writing lol. enjoy i guess.
> 
> disclaimer: i am in no way claiming that any of the seventeen members feel this way or struggle with this or that this is an accurate depiction of their life in any way. this is not to claim that this is their actual personalities and realities. 
> 
> #BrightAfterRain (we miss you Cheollie)

It’s like a chain reaction whenever it happens.

Jeonghan has barely even made it inside the practice room, only getting to briefly see the scene in front of him before he’s roughly grabbed by Joshua and Minghao and dragged away, into one of the conference rooms at the end of the hallway, in the opposite direction of the bathrooms. He knows what’s happened,  _ saw  _ what happened, and logically, he knows that it’s only because they’ve been practising for too long; because they’ve gone a bit too long without rest; because they’ve been intensely practising for the entire day. 

But _still_, seeing Chan on the opposite side of the room, crouched over the trash bin and making these horrible horrible gagging noises. 

_Still_, even if he’d only witnessed a brief second or so before he’s been roughly grabbed by the shoulders and led away, it’s _enough_. 

Fear grips his heart and it’s quick— quicker than usual —the way the anxiety pulses through his body, straight from his brain, right out from the middle of his heart, ice-like fire, which is a contradiction all on its own, but then again this phobia  _ is  _ the essence of that. He makes it about ten steps, faintly hears the practice room door slam shut before his knees buckles and he’s held up and pulled along, away from the scene; away from the cause of concerns.

He’s temporarily placed on one of the couches in the conference room; a small one they’ve sort of claimed as their own relaxing space, and that had just stayed that way the past few years without any interference from management. 

Actually, they had asked kindly, since they do have a tendency, some of them, to stay out far past the time where they’d be able to get back to the dorms on their own, and so, the room had slowly been decked out with blankets and pillows and even a small cupboard with snacks. A small drawer with paper and pens; another one with fidget toys. A weighted blanket because several of them dealt with anxiety. 

It’s their calm room, similar to the one they have back at the dorm. One where they put a member when everything gets too much. 

The most important part of this room, however, is the open space in the middle of the room, only covered by a plush carpet to hide the cold, unforgiving linoleum underneath. It’s thick enough that it’s safe to ride out a panic attack there without getting hurt most of the time, and the wrong texture to possible gain a rug burn unless one was  _ really  _ unlucky and/or insistent. 

“Jeonghannie?”

Jeonghan’s been too busy trying to quell the anxiety bubbling within him, focusing on the room, on the drawer with fidget toys, on the small plushies they’ve placed on the shelf on the opposite side of the room. They’d made it clear that management isn’t really allowed in here due to the room’s atmosphere, that it’s a place made for their eyes only, but there’s been an instance or two where a manager’s been with them when one member’s collapsed during practice and been brought to the room. 

He can’t quite focus, can’t quite seem to see anymore— it’s all blurry and while he thinks he might be able to see a mop of light-brown hair in front of him that’s probably Joshua, he isn’t really sure. 

He’s dizzy all of a sudden and he must’ve somehow managed to get the words out to express it because he’s gently grabbed and pulled onto his back on the soft carpet. His head is in someone’s lap and he tries to breathe in but can’t quite seem to get it past his throat, can’t seem to get it into his lungs. They feel like they’ve been filled with concrete. 

“Joshuji~” 

Someone starts running their hands through his hair, through the hair that he’s growing out again after keeping it short for so long. It’s calming but he still can’t breathe— he feels like he’s floating away and while there is someone behind him, Jeonghan doesn’t know where the other person who had grabbed him had gone, doesn’t know if there are other people in the room with them.

He needs to  _ know _ . 

“Who—?”

* * *

This is a familiar game to Joshua by now. It’s automatic. 

It isn’t uncommon for one of them to throw up. After all, they work hard, all day, all week and often on little sleep, food, water or a combination of the three. It’s bound to happen; a body can only withstand so much before it gives in, after all. It’s common in the same way that whenever something like that does happen, it’s almost instinctual for two people to seek out Jeonghan, to keep him from the scene. Get the two parties as far away from each other as possible.

They hadn’t known—  _ Joshua  _ hadn’t known about Jeonghan’s issue with other people being sick until the one night, back when they’d been six people sharing one room and seven sharing the other, and he’d woken up one night to the sound of someone puking their guts out in the bathroom across the hallway. 

He had expected Jeonghan, the unofficial mom of the group, to be the one to immediately be out of bed and soothing the distressed member. But instead, he sees Jeonghan’s silhouette in the doorway to their bedroom, grabbing onto the wall, hunched over, gasping for breath.

He’d been out of bed in seconds, thinking that Jeonghan was the one being sick, but instead, it had been Junhui crouching next to the toilet bowl, looking pale and weak. 

Joahua had called out Jeonghan’s name a few times before touching his shoulder just as the other bedroom door had opened and Seungcheol had come out, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. 

Seungcheol had been faster than Joshua to piece the situation together, taking only a quick look at Jeonghan’s fearful, unwavering look at Junhui before looking straight at Joshua, mouthing, ‘take Jeonghan to the kitchen’. 

He’d obeyed, of course, grabbing his friend by the arm and leading him away from Junhui who was still groaning and gagging pathetically, now being soothed by their leader. 

“Jeonghan,” he’d said calmly once he had helped him down on the floor, for some reason not trusting Jeonghan to be able to sit on a chair without falling off. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

Jeonghan had looked up at him, eyes disoriented and shiny, filled to the brim with unshed tears. “Jun— can’t h-handle… sick.”

He hadn’t gotten much more out of Jeonghan, had realised in his half-asleep state that he needed to calm Jeonghan down before he ended up fainting (which he’d failed miserably at; sitting only five minutes later with Wonwoo and Seungkwan on the kitchen floor with Jeonghan in the recovery position on the tiled floor, staring at something far in the distance as his body recovered from the complete shutdown it had forced to endure to return his body back to normal.

Once Junhui had gotten better again, after they had figured out that the episode had been due to a migraine, and likely nothing contagious, they’d sat down in one of their group-dorm heart-to-heart talks they did every week, figuring out how to deal with the newly found issue of Jeonghan’s phobia.

* * *

And now, with Jeonghan whimpering in his lap, trying futilely to get a single gasp of air into his lungs, Joshua can’t help but feel a sense of foreboding. Jeonghan hadn’t fainted since that kitchen episode two years prior, but they had been fairly close a few times, especially back when they’d also first figured out his chronic pain after the episode ending with Jeonghan’s fractured wrist. 

Now, Joshua thinks it might just happen again.

“Who—?” Jeonghan asks weakly, and Joshua knows that it’s an attempt for Jeonghan to orient himself, that he’s panicked to the point where he feels like he’s floating away, spiralling away from this world, and where he can’t trust his senses to give an accurate reading of the environment. 

“It’s me, Joshua, sitting behind you. I’m running my fingers through your hair. Do you feel that?” Joshua says gently. “You’re in the conference room down the hallway from the practice room, the one we decorated to make all nice and calm. Minghao’s on the couch. Do you want him to come to hold your hand or anything?”

It’s a familiar system; after all, it’s usually the two of them that pull Jeonghan away from these situations if none of them are too directly involved in the incidents that lead to these scenarios. Joshua usually is the first one who initiates direct contact with Jeonghan since they’re closer and somehow, when Jeonghan is deep in his own pain, trying to fight against the harsh waves of panic driving him deeper and deeper into his mind and further and further away from their plane of reality, Joshua is the one he defaults to, the one he seems to instantly recognise. BUt Jeonghan also trusts Minghao a lot, knows that they’re there, intent on helping him ride out the waves together.

“Hao~” Jeonghan manages to get out, eyes wild and unfocused, glancing at Joshua’s face for one moment before reaching the ceiling lights, the bright fluorescent lights. Joshua feels the shift, feels Jeonghan tense up and he, with the hand that isn’t carding through Jeonghan’s soft hair, waves in the general direction of the light switch, hoping that Minghao gets the message and turns off ceiling lights and the fairy lights on before joining them on the floor. 

He does, thankfully, and the harsh lights die out, only to be replaced with small pinpricks of light along the wall and shelves, combined with the glow-in-the-dark stars and moons Seungkwan had put up at some point, claiming that it was calming to not be in complete darkness and that they complimented the fairy lights well.

“Joshuji,” Jeonghan whispers, voice faint and raspy from the tears streaming down his face. “Don’t— don’t feel good.”

And Joshua knows he’s right in the way Jeonghan is looking up at him, with some sort of deep exhaustion that signs the confirmation that Jeonghan’s body will indeed have a minor shutdown within the next few minutes.

Jeonghan’s aware of it, which can be both good or bad; either he’s over the worst of his panic or he’s getting so bad that he feels too much, in too much detail, like a complete 180 of how fuzzy he usually is during his moments of panic. 

“It’s okay, Hannie-yah,” Joshua says in his most soothing voice. “We’re here. Me and HaoHao’s here to help you through it. Hao’s holding your hand, and I’m right here, carding my hands through your hair. It’s okay, you can just relax and we’ll stay with you the entire time. You’ll be okay. Just keep breathing for us and we’ll help you through it.”

And sure enough, after a minute, Jeonghan’s eyes roll back in his head and he goes limp, breath slowly returning to calmness associated with unconsciousness. Just to be safe, they still put Jeonghan in the recovery position but keeps close to him, keeps doing the exact same things as they had done before he’d fainted to keep the sense of consistency that helps Jeonghan recover more easily. 

“Hi there,” Joshua says soothingly, pushing the sweaty bangs away from Jeonghan’s face. “How are you feeling, angel?”

Jeonghan doesn’t answer, only stares at the opposite wall with a sleepy expression that Joshua recognises only too well; he’d fainted before too and the foggy, deep sleepiness that followed after his episode had felt exactly like Jeonghan looked now. 

“Do you want us to find a mattress so that you can rest for a bit? Maybe also find a plushie and the weighted blanket? You must be really exhausted.”

To that, Jeonghan nods and finally, since entering the room, he looks up at Minghao.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, voice raspy. “I— you, you should be taking care of Chan, not me— I should… I should be able to deal with this myself.”

“No, no,” Minghao says, gripping Jeonghan’s hand and rubbing his thumb over the back of it soothingly. “Chan is being taken care of by the others. Don’t you worry about that, hyung. We’re here to take care of you, okay? This is just as hard for you as it is for him.”

Jeonghan feels tears pressing at his eyes again; this happens far too often to be okay. He keeps losing control over a completely irrational fear. He should be the one taking care of others, of his precious dongsaengs, of  _ Chan _ , who must be so scared and exhausted and need rest, but yet he’s the one occupying their special room they have specifically to deal with something like Chan’s situation.

“You’re not selfish for needing help. You don’t always have to take care of others,” Joshua says gently, leaning down to press a kiss to his nose. “And besides, I think Junnie just texted Minghao. You wanna see how Chan is doing? Minghao can probably ask him.”

Jeonghan nods and suddenly, he feels far more tired, the bone-deep and sudden exhaustion from fainting hitting hard all of a sudden. He hears Joshua coo at him, feels them gently move him onto one of the thin floor mattresses they keep in the room for times like this, manages to open his eyes a little when Minghao slides a pillow in under his neck and hands him one of the plushies from the shelves, one with a soft exterior he can keep close to him and feel soothed by. The pressure of the weighted blanket when Joshua gently pulls it over him, and finally, just as he feels himself drifting away into sleep, Minghao hugging him on one side and Joshua on the other, keeping him anchored to the room, to this plane of existence. 

* * *

He wakes up sometime later, only to not find Minghao next to him anymore, and for a second, Jeonghan panics, worried that they’ve realised how stupid and dumb his phobia is and how weak he is for letting it control him like it had before he realises that Minghao is just on the couch, reading a book with Junwui laying with his head on Minghao’s lap, similar to how Joshua had been his makeshift pillow when he had been deep in the throes of his panic attack. 

“You’re awake,” Minghao says when he hears Jeonghan move underneath the dark grey of the weighted blanket. “How are you feeling, hyung?”

“Tired,” he says quietly, holding onto the plushie in his arms. He doesn’t have enough energy to sit up and so he doesn’t, only stays there on the floor, Joshua asleep next to him. “How’s Channie?”

“He’s okay, hyung,” Jun says from Minghao’s lap. “Turns out he hadn’t had enough to drink. They made him lay down for a bit, had him eat something as well as drink a lot of water. He’s mostly better now, only tired— like you are. Do you wanna see him or wait a bit longer?”

Jeonghan realises that they’re asking if he feels safe doing it. Logically, he knows it should be, that nothing Chan had done would directly affect him and make him sick too, but emotionally?”

“I— think…” he starts, but he doesn’t quite manage to finish his train of thought. He’s too exhausted, emotionally and physically, and really, he wants nothing more than to lay back down to sleep. But some part of him— the mom part, keeps insisting that he should go check on his younger members, makes sure that they’re okay, sacrificing his own comfort for the wellbeing of his dongsaengs.

“I think you should wait a bit more, hyung,” Minghao says. “Go back to sleep. We’ll wake you in a bit and you can see how you feel then, okay?”

Jeonghan only nods, tries to quell the parental feelings in him and closes his eyes again, seeking out the warmth emanating from Joshua’s sleeping form next to him. Soon enough, he slips away again, succumbing to an exhaustion-caused dreamless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a tumblr (that i'm very inactive on atm): @vampiricalthorns


End file.
